


A Working Relationship

by Vamillepudding



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Aliens, Alternate Universe - Star Trek, Angst, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, I feel like I'm really not selling this, M/M, Planets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-10-20 09:54:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17620238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vamillepudding/pseuds/Vamillepudding
Summary: As First Officer on the USS Camden, Tommy's life isn't easy. As First Officer to Captain Solomons, well. Every job has some perks.**Alfie, for no reason that Tommy can fathom, has taken his shirt off for the fight. Someone says “holy shit”, and he thinks he definitely understands the sentiment.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to everyone who helped out with this / listened to my nonsensical monologues and questions like "how does gravity work again" / provided me with pictures of the PB actors wearing yellow. This document is saved on my computer as "extremely obscure niche AU" which, honestly, is just about accurate. Have fun !

The Alpha shift hasn’t even ended ten minutes ago, and already Tommy is called back to the bridge. It’s a good thing he hasn’t even left the deck yet, having been held up by several crew members on his way to his quarters to deal with ‘just one thing, Commander, won’t take a second’. 

When the call comes, he just leaves young Flendon standing in the corridor without a word, mind already on the reason behind this request. He gave Alfie a brief summary on what happened during the last shift before Alfie took over, which can really be boiled down to ‘not much’, but maybe Alfie has a follow-up question. 

Possibly he just wants to ask how Tommy’s doing. He does that sometimes, call Tommy into the rec room or one of the rooms reserved for meetings, and when they’re sure that no noisy crew member is listening, Alfie will cross his arms behind his head, or fiddle around with the data PADD, and just as Tommy thinks he is unable to stand the silence a moment longer, Alfie will say “how’s my favourite XO, eh?”

It’s stupid, and a waste of both their times, but it never fails to make Tommy all warm inside. 

It becomes quickly clear, however, that today this is not one of those times. The turbolift doors slide open, and Tommy steps onto the bridge right as Alfie is saying: “- and make sure to be ready for instant beam up, yeah? These bastards have killed three Federation members on the last expedition there. Accident my arse. We give you the signal, you get us the fuck out of there, alright?”

Rhetorical though the question is, Ollie says “yessir” anyway, despite the fact that as a pilot, he has nothing whatsoever to do with transporting duties.  
Tommy ignores Ollie and says “I will ask Lieutenant Petrovna to send up her most capable transporter chief. Tell me what’s happening.” 

Alfie darts a quick look at him. Obviously Tommy is not considered important right now, since he just snaps

“Lieutenants Stark and Qaro, you’re with me. And get a fucking move on. Commander Shelby, you’re in charge.”  
Lizzie and Qaro leave their stations to follow Alfie into the lift. Tommy considers this for a second, then calls “Ensign Horowitz, you’re in charge” and doesn’t wait for Ollie’s confirmation that he heard the command before he enters the lift just as the doors are about to slide shut. 

Their thankfully short ride to the nearest transporter room is silent, with nothing to distract him from Alfie’s curious gaze, but as soon as they’re back in the corridors, Tommy grabs his arm to slow him down. Miraculously, Alfie does, albeit not by much. 

“The last time I checked, delegating your work to a pilot not a year out of the Academy does not in fact qualify as ‘being in charge’,” he says conversationally. Tommy tries to suppress his irritation and finds that he can’t. 

“The last time I checked, beaming down to a dangerous planet without telling your XO what’s going on was a sure way of getting a man killed,” he retorts and adds: “Captain,” just because he usually foregoes the rank with Alfie, just because he knows it makes Alfie smile. 

The edges of his mouth lifting just a bit, Alfie says “Raxeon Prime. Starfleet’s got a base there, but they sent a distress call just now. The Camden was the only ship in close proximity.” 

“And you’re only taking two officers?” Tommy asks, already thinking of all the ways this could go wrong. With anyone else, it would have been paranoia. As a first officer, he’s just doing his job. 

“Three,” a voice calls out. They’ve reached the transporter room now, and sure enough, there stands an ensign ready to handle the beam up as requested, and next to him Chief Engineer Tatiana Petrovna. She’s got a phaser at the ready in one hand, and in the other, inexplicably, a knife as long as her forearm.

Tommy knows he should protest, but Alfie really does need more than two people, and Lieutenant Petrovna didn’t _just_ major in engineering, he knows. In fact, they should all be thankful that someone with that much fight training decided to work with Starfleet instead of against it. 

“No knife,” he says, swallowing any and all other objections he has. Petrovna just smirks at him, a blatant disobedience he should really give her an official reprimand for – but then, once started, this would end in an outrageously long record, her dismissal from her post, and the USS Camden would be without their chief engineer. They’re already down one senior officer, they can’t lose another one. 

He really can’t let her leave with the knife, though. Raxeon Prime is known for having an incredibly hostile people. Starfleet would have let them be, if not for their high lithium deposit, which is more valuable to the cooperation than a literal goldmine – or, apparently, their own people.

Negotiations were going slowly, last time he heard, with a number of very suspicious accidents no one could prove were actual murders. Tommy hasn’t followed the events closely so he has no idea how a base could be established there at all. Whatever trouble caused the distress signal to be placed, it will come to the surprise of exactly fucking no one. If they see Petrovna with such an obvious weapon, they’ll shoot her on sight. 

Everyone else is standing on the platforms already. Tommy opens his mouth when Alfie beats him to it: “No fucking knife, Lieutenant.” 

It might be that Alfie is the captain, or that he’s been rumoured to have spent most of his youth in jail before enrolling in the Academy, or that he is a natural leader, unlike Tommy, who spends most of his time pretending. Whatever the cause, Tatjana sighs and holds the weapon out to Tommy, sharp end first.

Tommy’s fingers wrap around the blade, instantly drawing blood. He doesn’t react to the engineer’s wink, just stares until she joins the others on the platform. Alfie’s eyes are still on him, and suddenly Tommy feels uncomfortably like he’s being read, like Alfie knows exactly why Tommy took that blade. 

He might. Somehow, in all the years since they first met, Alfie has always shown the unsettling ability to know what Tommy is thinking at the most inconvenient of times. 

Only after the transporter beam seizes the landing party is Tommy able to breathe again.

**

“Alright,” he calls, back on the bridge. “Ensign Horowitz, you’re relieved.” Ollie looks only too happy to vacate the captain’s chair, but Tommy doesn’t sit down just yet. He never does, always waits as long as he can reasonably make it.

Ada pointed it out once, back when they were both serving on the Heath. He didn’t comment on it at the time. _Explaining yourself is as good as handing your enemy a gun to shoot you in the head with._ Words he still remembers to this day. 

Tommy, still standing, has pulled out his PADD to do some further research on Raxeon Prime and finds his rather limited knowledge on the planet and its inhabitants confirmed. This star base is actually the second attempt by Starfleet to establish a connection. The old one apparently exploded, though no one knows why. No bodies were found, all destroyed in the ensuing fire. 

Something is bothering him, something he can’t quite put his finger on. He scrolls through an article of the planet’s current president, or their equivalent of it. There is something… 

The ship _rocks_. And Tommy has been in armed conflicts on ships before, he knows what it feels if the Camden had been hit by another vessel, and this is not that. 

The PADD has fallen down, as have a lot of other things, including some crew members. Now that the quake has subsided everyone is left discussing it frantically, as if having a conversation somehow helps the fact. Tommy, not in the mood to answer any of the crew’s questions before he gets some answers of his own, activates the intercom.

“Commander Shelby to Engineering. If someone could explain to me whose idea of maintenance is blowing up the ship, I will know whom to fire.” 

“It was an accident,” offers Lieutenant Takahashi, apparently unperturbed by how much harder she is making Tommy’s job right now. “An engine malfunctioned and affected a couple other systems. We’ll fix it.” 

“How fast?” Tommy asks, realises it’s the wrong question, and tries again: “Which systems were affected?” 

“Replicators. No big deal. Give us, like, two hours. Just be careful with putting pressure on any other systems, alright? For all we know, another disturbance could cause a total breakdown.”

“Fine,” he says, because there really is nothing else to say. The crew is not going to starve in two hours with no food. It could have been much worse, and he trusts Engineering to – well. He trusts them to do their best, and he trusts them to present him with the outcome within an acceptable time range. Their result he will judge for himself. 

_It could have been worse_ , Tommy thinks again, which is of course precisely the moment in which his comm unit buzzes and Alfie’s voice comes crackling through. 

“I need back-up here, right about fucking now. This is Captain to bridge, as I am sure you have noticed, but protocol is protocol is protocol and all that, so that we’ll all have something to write down in the Captain’s log later, yeah?” 

Tommy, long since used to Alfie’s constant need to go off topic even when he is in quite literally in a life or death situation, has started to move as soon as Alfie finished the first sentence. By the time Alfie finishes his whole speech, Tommy has picked up his PADD and sent a message to Engineering already, simply saying _Keep working on fixing the system error_ , and is now able to confidently tell Alfie: “I’ll be down immediately. Shelby out.”

He points at Ollie. “You’re back in charge. Don’t fuck this up.”

There is no point bringing down any more senior officers with him, seeing as it would both violate rules and reason, so instead he randomly picks crew members who happen to walk past him on his way to the transporter room and who he knows for sure can fire a phaser and hit the target in their sleep.

This leaves him with an odd mix of people: Two young lieutenants from the Science department, an ensign from Communications, and one security guard, who keeps glaring at them all and muttering under her breath that this is madness. It probably is, but Tommy knows from experience that bringing Security only has led to worse disasters before.

Somehow, inexplicably, it’s always the regulation-abiding missions that tend to go haywire, whereas it’s missions like this one, seemingly doomed from the start, that generally have the best outcome. 

He lets the security guard glare and first tells the unfortunate makeshift crew to set their phasers to stun, then tells the transporter chief that they’re ready for beam-down. A moment later, the sober environment found in all spaceships has been replaced by mud, a purple sky, and phaser fire all around them. 

Tommy immediately draws his own weapon and returns the fire on instinct before looking around to find cover. A small building draws his attention. It’s made of material that looks like marble but also not, in the way that all non-earth materials will always look to him (familiar and strange at the same time, like his brain is desperately trying and only somewhat succeeding in coming up with adequate comparisons for what it’s seeing), and it’s the most sensible solution right now, so he runs for it in between firing more shots, and hopes the others have had the same idea. 

They did. Huddled together behind the marble-ish wall, four faces adopt the same expression of questioning and accusing. 

“Is anyone injured?” Tommy asks, and gets negation in return. “Good. Have you seen the Captain or anyone else from the Camden?”

More head-shakes. He resists the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose, and tries to reach Alfie via the communicator instead. No answer. He tries the Camden next. No answer. Frustrated, he tries to reach the Communications ensign. Nothing. 

The system failure affected more than just the replicators, then. 

“The gunfire has stopped,” remarks one of the lieutenants. She has pulled out her own communicator. “I can’t reach the Camden.” 

“We need to find Captain Solomons. He can’t be far.” Even as Tommy as it, he realises that it’s not true. Alfie has only been on the planet for forty minutes at best, but he might have used that time to do anything from stealing a shuttlecraft to challenge the planet’s president to a duel. Anything is possible, which is both oddly endearing and frustrating as hell. 

All those musings get blown away, however, when he senses a presence behind their little group. The ensign from Security and the one from Communications must notice, too, because they all draw their phasers and turn around at the same time, only to be faced with Lieutenant Petrovna, who’s snuck up on them. In her hand is another knife. Tommy feels the beginning of a headache penetrating his skull. 

“Took you long enough,” Petrovna says. “Come with me.” They follow her through a hidden door into the building, where the rest of the original landing party has taken cover. Tommy takes one look at the room and knows that this is where the Starbase was located, because this is essentially what every single Starbase ever looks like from the inside.

Lots of highly advanced technology combined with outdated technology because Starfleet’s pockets are deep but not that deep, and of course there is also someone quietly bleeding in the corner because Starfleet is, after all, a military organisation first and foremost. 

The bleeding someone is Lieutenant Stark. By her side is Lieutenant Qaro, an Andorian woman whose blue skin is sickly grey at the moment. Either she’s worried about her fellow crew member or she’s hiding an injury of her own. When she spots Tommy, she squeezes Lizzie’s hand and comes over, standing at attention. 

“Report, Lieutenant,” Tommy tells her, so Qaro does, catching him up in succinct sentences.

They beamed down to chaos. The Starfleet officers who sent the distress call were all dead with the exception of one, but so was Raxeon Prime’s leader. Murdered, her people accused. Alfie, trying to calm the situation, had made things worse by shaking the hand of the surviving Starfleet member, which was interpreted as a hostile action and let to the last survivor being killed right in front of the landing party. 

This, Qaro explains, is when Alfie placed that call to the Camden to ask for back-up. 

“And where is he now?” Tommy asks, because for all that Alfie tends to leave disaster in his wake, he’s usually at least there to face the consequences in the aftermath. This room, however, is very decidedly Alfie-free. 

Qaro bites her lip. Tommy stares at her. Qaro looks at Petrovna. Ensign-from-Security coughs. In the corner, Lizzie moans quietly. 

“Where the fuck is Alfie?” Tommy snaps. He’s losing his patience rapidly, whereas his worry keeps increasing to the point where he can’t even be bothered to use Alfie’s rank in front of the others. 

“The Raxeons elect their new president via survival of the fittest,” says Qaro into the silence. Her antennas sway up and down, up and down. “Apparently there’s some sort of challenge, and usually it’s Raxeons fighting each other, but there was only one candidate this time, and he reckoned Captain Solomons would… make a good contestant.” 

_Of course he did_ , Tommy thinks but doesn’t say. If this would happen to anyone, it would be Alfie. Fuck, Alfie probably _volunteered_. “Right,” he says instead, like this is a completely normal occurrence. For the Camden, it kind of is. “When does the fight take place?”

“It started five minutes ago, sir.” 

Once more, Tommy is staring at Qaro. “Then what the hell are we doing here?” he asks, and walks out the door.

**

There is a fighting pit of sorts, surrounded entirely by Raxeons. Well, who else would it be surrounded by?  
None of them pay the crew any attention. Tommy had expected them to, had given the order to set the phaser to kill, because at this point he just cares about getting Alfie the hell out of this. But everyone seems too excited about what’s happening in the small arena to care about Starfleet, too excited about the fight.

_The fight_. 

Tommy pushes through bodies, the others right behind him, and stops short when he comes in sight of Alfie. 

Alfie, for no reason that Tommy can fathom, has taken his shirt off for the fight. Someone says “holy shit”, and he’s not sure if it came from Qaro or Ensign-from-Security, but he definitely understands the sentiment. 

Looking like a mixture of an underwear model and a porn star is one thing, though, and it’s quick to get over. After all, they attended the Academy together, and Tommy has lost count of how many times Alfie managed to lose his shirt in situations that in no way called for it. Another thing entirely is the fighting. 

Tommy has seen Alfie fight in a variety of scenarios. He’s seen him fight in the safe environment of the Academy’s training hall, and in the Camden’s sparring rooms, but he’s also seen him on strange planets battling strange people on missions gone wrong, as they so often do.

He’s seen Alfie fight so often that you’d think it’d get old, that he’d get bored of it. Anyone who thinks that is an idiot, though, and they clearly haven’t seen what Alfie can do. 

Because Alfie on a battlefield is a sight to behold. And Tommy has never managed to quite turn away from it. 

The Raxeons must have taken Alfie’s phaser, but it doesn’t matter, because they gave him an axe instead. It’s an enormous thing, metal-but-not-quite and two-handed, and Alfie wields it with ease. His upper body is glistening with sweat. “Holy shit” echoes behind him again, just as Alfie narrowly escapes a blow that would have taken his arm off.

Another swipe at his hand almost gets him. He swings under and takes a desperate swipe at the Raxeons throat. It misses by inches. 

Not much is known about Raxeons except for the obvious fact that they’re humanoids, but it’s clear that this one at least is an experienced fighter.

He has an axe of his own that he now aims at Alfie’s stomach.  Alfie avoids it by taking a step to the side, but the Raxeon is already there, abandoning the weapon in favour of punching Alfie in the face. 

The crowd cheers, but Alfie doesn’t go down. A trickle of blood runs down his mouth and beard that he doesn’t bother wiping off as he swings the axe again. This one draws blood; a yellow, sluggish substance. Alfie swipes again, misses. So does the Raxeon.

For a short while they just stand there, both watching the other, catching their breaths. Then Alfie resumes the attack. The Raxeon is ready for another blow. Instead, Alfie collides his axe with his opponent’s shield. 

Qaro asks “what’s he doing” in a sort of fascinated whisper. Tommy doesn’t turn around, doesn’t answer. He knows what Alfie is doing, and he approves. 

In a swift movement, Alfie draws his weapon back. The shield goes with it, hits the ground. The Raxeon is left with only a one-handed axe as defence. He clearly intends to put it to full use.

The weapons clash, clash again. In a last, desperate move, the Raxeon raises his axe over his head and lets it come back down full-force. Alfie blocks it easily, then swings his own axe so fast Tommy almost misses the movement. He cuts through the Raxeon’s skin and gets splattered with yellow, poisonous looking blood. 

Tommy's almost relaxed now, he knows what Alfie gearing up for a kill blow looks like. The world pauses for a moment. When time resumes, Alfie is skewered on the end of a spike attached to the Raxeon. 

Tommy realises that Alfie actually looks surprised by this, fucking surprised like he never saw  this coming. Probably he didn’t. Neither did Tommy, and now it’s happened and Alfie has lost and literally has a giant spike sticking through his midsection and all Tommy can think of is how absolutely astonished Alfie seems to be.

A laugh forces its way up his throat, bubbles over, is cut off almost before it begins, starts again, suddenly Tommy is laughing properly, all while the Raxeons around him cheer and wave, all while his own crew shouting and generally being horrified. 

On some distant level he notices how he’s being dragged away, how Raxeons are now swarming Alfie, doing something to him, he can’t see anymore because he’s out of reach, someone grabs his hair, more shouts, and he doesn’t really notice any of this because he is still laughing.  

**

It's been an hour, and Alfie is still alive. He should be dead, he should have fucking died within minutes of that spike piercing his body. Instead he’s able to stand, and walk, and pace around in the cell all crew members were thrown into.

Nothing about it makes sense, and Tommy thinks they have just discovered the reason Starfleet is so keen on making these negotiations successful. 

He would point this out to Alfie, except Alfie isn’t intent on listening right now. So he keeps pacing, and Tommy keeps standing at attention, and everyone else keeps sitting.

No one has spoken a word in a long time, not since Alfie tried to open a comm link to the Camden and found that he couldn’t, not since Tommy briefed him on the system error, not since Alfie said “right” and then stared at him, the words _This is your fault_ going unsaid but ringing in Tommy’s ears all the same. 

His muscles are burning with the effort of holding one position for so long, but he can’t relax, not yet, not until his commanding officer says “at ease”. So far, Alfie hasn’t. He doesn’t even seem to have noticed Tommy’s posture. 

Finally, Alfie’s strides slow down, his frantic energy replaced by fatigue, or maybe pain. He doesn’t stop walking though. Alfie is always in motion, Tommy reflects, never sitting down. Even on the bridge the Captain’s chair is vacated most of the time. This is how Alfie functions, how he thinks, how he comes up with plans. 

But whatever the Raxeons did to him probably wasn’t meant to be followed by an hour of constant movement. Into the silence, Tommy says “sit down, Alfie”.

Alfie gives him a look, keeps walking. Tommy’s nerves are frayed, have been frayed even since before this whole mess started, and he’s got to hold it together, but he also knows that he’s about to snap. “Sit down,” he repeats, voice growing sharp. “We don’t know how long we’ll be stuck here.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Alfie gets that look in his eyes, the one that always suggests trouble. 

“We don’t know? Fucking right we don’t know. And whose fucking fault is that?” 

Tommy flinches. His cheeks are burning, not because of the words which he know are deserved, but because of their witnesses, the rest of the landing party. He bites his lip in an effort not to reply. Alfie stares for another second, then abruptly continues the pacing. His “at ease, Commander”, thrown in as an afterthought, feels like a slap in the face.

**

The comms start working again after another hour or so. This is not a surprise. People don’t get hired to work at the Camden because of how great they look in uniforms, after all, and Tommy knows the Engineering department is good because he handpicked them all himself. 

“Camden to Landing Party, this is Ensign Horowitz,” comes Ollie’s voice over the comm unit. “The systems are all fixed now. What’s happening with you?” 

“We need a beam-out,” Alfie says. “Preferably before the citizens of this lovely planet remember that they have prisoners.” 

Tommy, his gaze fixed on the wall, adds “Have medical waiting. Captain Solomons and Lieutenant Stark got injured.” 

Ollie gives confirmation, and no more than a couple minutes later, the transporter beam releases them into the Camden.

Immediately they are swarmed by medical personnel ushering everyone to Med Bay. It’s standard procedure even without injuries involved, checking out landing parties for potential viruses they might have picked up planetside.

Tommy knows this, but tells an Ensign from Medical that he’ll come around bit later, anyway. The Ensign looks sceptical. Her attention gets quickly diverted, however, as she spots Alfie, the only other person left in the transporter room now. He’s bleeding again, the stomach wound ugly evidence of his defeat. Yet he, too, stayed behind. 

“We’ll need to check that out, Captain,” says the Ensign, as if her words might change Alfie’s mind. 

“Yeah, well, you can tell Linda that I definitely plan to inhabit one of her nice little beds very soon, but not before I get a chance to have a private word with Commander Shelby, who, as convenience has it, will also join everyone in Med Bay in a bit, _a bit_ meaning not right now, that being due to the private word I mentioned.”

There is a brief pause. Tommy says, “you’re dismissed, Ensign”, because at some point in the past two years, his job description changed from First Officer to Translator for Alfie’s rambles. 

The Ensign hurries out, and what small amusement has arisen in Tommy during this exchange evaporates now that he’s, finally, alone with Alfie. He tenses, and tenses some more as Alfie takes a step towards him. 

“Now, I know you already know this, Tommy,” he says flatly, “but let me just say this for protocol’s sake, yeah, because someone has to follow protocol and clearly it’s not gonna be you. What you should have done, right, is you should have informed me of the system error before you beamed down.”

Tommy doesn’t reply, because there really isn’t much he has to say to this. Clearly Alfie doesn’t expect an answer, anyway.

“And you know what you also should have done? Do you? You, mate, should have fucking followed my orders the last time you led a landing party. You should have let me take the lead with that bloody Vulcan ambassador. You should have fucking discussed your fucking plan before you had the phasers set to stun on Grapus 2.” 

Alfie has come closer during this speech, is now close enough for Tommy to feel his hot breath against his cheek.

“What I think is that you seem to be underlying a misconception about the chain of command on this vessel.” 

“My apologies,” Tommy says coldly. 

“Your apologies,” Alfie repeats mockingly. “As long as I have your fucking apologies, I assume that qualifies as a magical fix-it. Should we add that to the Captain’s log, then, eh, Tommy? Commander Shelby screws up for the hundredth time, but he says he’s sorry about it. Would you maybe like a priest, too? Confess all your sins, be forgiven? I’m terribly sorry to be the one to tell you this, my friend, but that is not how it works in the real world.” 

“What do you expect me to do?” Tommy says, suddenly angry. “Get on my knees and beg for forgiveness? A public whipping, Alfie, would that suit you?” 

“How about you stop fucking up. I reckon that would be a fucking good start.” Alfie still hasn’t moved away, is still invading Tommy’s space, and for just a second Tommy considers what would happen if he closed the distance between them and suggested a different way of getting rid off this tension. 

Then, Alfie abruptly says: “I’m going to Med Bay now. I suggest you hope for my continued survival, Commander, because if I actually fucking die from this, then the Camden is yours, and you and I both know what a terrible thing that would be. And, Tommy?”

Tommy, frozen in place at what Alfie just hinted, can’t do much more than raise his head. “If you’re ever wondering why it’s not you occupying that fancy chair on the bridge, then let me be the messenger of your epiphany and tell you that this-“ Alfie points at his wound that is seeping more blood now, “-is why.” 

Tommy continues standing motionless in the transporter room long after the doors have slid shut behind Alfie.  
  



	2. Chapter 2

_2 years ago_

When Alfie asks him if he wants to be Alfie’s First Officer, Tommy thinks it’s a fucking joke.  Except Alfie wouldn’t joke about things like that. He may cross virtually every line, and that very much includes things of actual importance, but he’s never been purposely cruel to Tommy. 

In a way, that makes it almost worse. Tommy knows Alfie doesn’t mean to be cruel, he’s very earnest about the whole thing. Tommy thinks that if it came down to it, he’d have preferred mockery. 

There really is nothing to be said to this question except: “I didn’t think I qualified.” 

Alfie stares at him like he’s just said that actually, the earth is flat. “Fucking hell, are you still hung up about that stupid test? I can assure you right now that no one except you gives a fuck about that, right?” 

Tommy is, in fact, still hung up about that stupid test. A training exercise in the Academy, the Kobayashi Maru presents fourth-year-cadets with a combat simulation. It’s not about winning: The catch is that there _is_ no winning. Instead it’s meant to show how the participants deal with no-win-scenarios. 

When Alfie took it, he did everything he could to rescue the crew, and upon realising that death for him was still imminent, he crashed the ship into the one of the enemies, taking them down with him. 

When Tommy took it, he accidentally killed all crewmembers before the enemies invaded the ship and took all important information. 

When Alfie walked out of the simulation, he got drunk. 

When Tommy walked out of the simulation, he smashed his fist against the wall enough times to leave it with a dent and his knuckles with a permanent scar. 

Presumably Alfie didn’t give the whole thing as much as a second thought once the hangover was over. But Tommy kept thinking about it, thinks about it still, although eight years have passed. 

Alfie says: “Not that I don’t appreciate getting to witness first-fucking-hand how your mind makes up all these funny little thoughts about yourself, but I do have other things to do actually, don’t I, so I suggest that once you’re done with all the internal angsting and whatnot, just send me a message. I would say that the spot is yours no matter what, but it actually only is for three more days, so if you don’t give me your answer by then, well, I’ll just assume it as a No, right?” 

“It’s a No,” Tommy says immediately. Alfie laughs. 

“Three days,” he says, and with that, walks off. 

It’s a Monday. On Thursday, ten minutes to midnight, Tommy calls.

 

**

 

_Now_

The atmosphere on the bridge can best be described as tense, though that seems too small a word to fully enunciate the situation. 

It’s been three days since Raxeon Prime, two days since Alfie was allowed to leave Med Bay, one day since Polly called. 

It was a private call, aunt to nephew, not Federation President to First Officer, therefore Tommy felt fully justified in not answering. He listened to the PADD ring and ring, just lying on his bed while oddly comforted by the sound. 

It’s also been two days since he’s eaten anything, two days since Alfie talked to him in any other capacity than giving short orders or asking simple, work-related questions, two days since Tommy could bear to really look at himself in the bathroom mirror. 

Right now, he’s on Gamma shift duty, which means that most of the ship is asleep. Not many people enjoy Gamma shift, but Tommy finds it peaceful. Technically he’s violating regulations since he just continued straight on from Beta shift, slept during Alpha shift, and served the Gamma and Beta shift before that.

16 hour work days aren’t normal even by Starfleet’s high standards, but so far no one has told Tommy to do otherwise, and if he isn’t working, he’s just going to be in his room staring at the wall anyway. Sleep is another thing that eludes him at the moment. 

His PADD gives a ping. He thinks, briefly, foolishly, that it might be Alfie, calling him to another fake meeting.   
It’s not Alfie, just the report from the Science Department that he asked for. His stomach twists in disappointment anyway.

 

** 

 

_5 years ago_

They get assigned to different ships after their current contracts run out. Alfie is now the First Officer on the USS Camden, Tommy is serving as a regular bridge officer again, this time on the USS Heath.

He hasn’t talked to Alfie in years, not since they graduated from Command School together. Not since Alfie had shaken his hand, somber and serious, playing to the hilt the role of the gifted graduate with a rosy future ahead of him. They were all playing a role that day, all 17 of them.

Tommy had been afraid that people would see right through him. Alfie had had no such qualms, in the same way he never has. They shook hands, clad in dress uniforms that made Tommy seem sharp and Alfie seem like he was about to deck someone, and Tommy tried to pull his hand away and Alfie held on, and then Alfie let go, but not before he winked at him. 

It’s been three years, and Tommy still thinks about that day sometimes. 

On the day before his new contract starts, he’s in a bar on Starbase 9. Tomorrow a shuttlecraft will come to pick him up, but tonight is all his, just as the past four weeks have been. Traditionally, Starfleet officers are allowed a month-long holiday before reassignment. Most people spend it visiting their families or friends. 

Tommy put in one call to Arthur on his first day off. Arthur didn’t answer. He called back a couple hours later, but by then, Tommy had already been drunk out of his mind. 

He didn’t put in any more calls. 

The bar is almost empty. He is sitting in a dark, secluded corner, shielded from view of the other patrons. And still, someone joins him. 

It makes no sense whatsoever that Tommy, without looking up from his glass, knows who it is. Maybe after all this time, his body is still finely attuned to the inner workings of the mind of Alfie Solomons. 

The voice, the half-mad edge lend to all the words, confirms what Tommy knew already: “Is that regular earth whiskey I’m spotting? No sense of adventure in that. Skagaran whiskey, now, that is the way to go. Will burn your tongue right out of that pretty mouth.” 

“Alright then,” Tommy says and signals to the waiter, if only for the surprise evident on Alfie’s face. He orders for the two of them, then leans back in his chair. They’re both pretending like they are not actively sizing each other up. 

Neither of them talks until their drinks arrive. Their glasses clink against each other, and they down the liquor simultaneously. 

“Tongue still intact, Thomas?” asks Alfie, as if he isn’t the one with a faint blush on his cheeks. Tommy realises it’s the first time he’s seen Alfie drink alcohol, and that’s including their Academy years. 

“Would you like to check?” he says before he can consider what a bad idea this is. And he realises something else in that second: Alfie hasn’t taken his gaze from Tommy’s mouth. The blush appears more pronounced now. 

“Perhaps I should,” Alfie says. He licks his lips, leans closer over the table. Tommy mirrors the movement. His head feels fuzzy, except two glasses of whiskey shouldn’t be enough to have a proper effect on him. 

Alfie’s hand comes up to Tommy’s face, hovers just an inch or two short of actually touching skin.

“Only I reckon,” he continues, with Tommy frozen utterly in place, “that actually touching you might just make you disappear in a cloud of smoke, right, fucking gone like you were never there at all, and I’d be left sitting here all on my own. Great fucking joke, that.”

Leaning closer still, until Tommy can almost feel Alfie’s breath on his cheek, Alfie says: “Nah, mate, I wouldn’t risk it.”   
And then he withdraws his hand. And then he fucking winks. 

Tommy has never hated anyone so passionately, he thinks, until it’s three years later and Alfie asks him to join his crew.

 

**

 

_Now_

One of the quirks in working for Starfleet is that sometimes, you’ll go on a planet that for seemingly no reason is named after the 34th president of the United States. Dwight D. Eisenhower has spent his entire life on earth, and yet here, in the middle of Sector 9, there is a whole planet named in his honour. 

The moment they beam down to it, Qaro says: “Is that a statue of your former president?” 

“Not my president,” Alfie and Tommy say simultaneously, because no matter what else is going on, an Englishman is always ready to distance himself from the colonies. 

It actually _is_ a statue of Eisenhower, though the term statue might be a little presumptious: The construct in front of them is naturally grown, a giant tree that just happens to bear an uncanny likeness to a man who’s been dead for over three hundred years now. 

“Creepiest fucking thing I ever seen,” says Alfie conversationally. The way he says it makes it unclear whom exactly he is addressing, or if indeed he is addressing anyone at all. 

Tommy decides that whoever is being spoken to here, it’s not him. He walks into the cluster of trees nearby, and waits for something – anything – maybe for Alfie to go after him. 

He doesn’t.

 

**

 

_9 years ago_

You can’t just sign up for Command School. First a regular major has to be completed at Starfleet Academy, and, provided you do really well and prove yourself during practical semesters as well as theoretical exams, you might get a recommendation for the advanced Command track. 

Tommy gets in due to his excellent grades in all areas. 

Alfie gets in because he’s built a small bomb that one time. 

There’s something very unfair about the whole thing, and it’s even unfairer that Tommy has these thoughts swirling through his head in the first place. Alfie saved a lot of lives that day, bleeding mad improvisation though it was, whereas the best Tommy has done for Starfleet so far was getting straight A’s. And that, if he’s being honest, is the whole problem. 

Jealousy, Polly told him once, wasn’t a good look on him. Those words echo in his mind that first day of Command School as Alfie, golden boy of the Academy, comes in and greets Tommy like they’re old friends. 

He remembers that he was 10 when Polly first told him this. He’s 24 now. One of the selected few to study for the opportunity of having a ship of his own one day. Does it really matter who else is there in the classroom with him? 

Tommy returns the greeting, like they’re old friends. For a second he thinks that maybe he’d like it if they were.

 

**

 

_Now_

Tommy hears the sound of something exploding and his first thought is, _This was to be expected_. 

Contrary to popular belief, not all away missions go wrong. In fact, not even most away missions go wrong on an average starship. He has served a number of contracts on a number of vessels and if he’d have to give an estimate, he’d say chances are about 1:1 that something won’t go as planned, but only 1:4 that something will go _badly_. 

If the Camden were an average starship with an average record, he’d presumably have a lot less headaches. 

Eisenhower hasn’t been much explored, but was categorised as Harmless. Definitely no explosions mentioned in any of the reports Tommy read. He’s still in the small forest, and the explosion definitely came from where he left Alfie and Qaro. 

That, too, was to be expected. 

He starts running. 

It’s only a couple of minutes until he arrives at the plain they beamed down on, and the very first thing he notices is that Alfie doesn’t have any visible injuries. 

The second thing is that the statue of Eisenhower is in the middle of burning to ash. 

He joins Alfie in front of the blazing tree. Alfie doesn’t give any indication that he notices the presence at his side, but then, he never does. 

He doesn’t offer an explanation either, but then, he never does that, either. Instead he says, “Sight like that gives me the shivers. Really makes you think, that sort of thing, doesn’t it, way of life and all that. Makes you _think_.” 

This time there is no confusion about whom this is directed at. If he had a cigarette, Tommy would light it now. Without the distraction, there’s nothing left to do but answer. 

“Makes me think about how much I like not being burned alive.” 

“No, see, you say that because you got no imagination, Tommy. Got to think outside the box. Close your eyes.” 

Not an order, not really. But close enough. Tommy closes his eyes. Now he only hears the crackling flames, the unmistakable sound of something slowly turning into nothing.

Alfie’s voice joins the mix, much closer to his ear than expected.

“Now I want you to imagine how it would feel like to burn. Really, properly _imagine_ it.

You’re burning to death, you’re just standing there being fucking burned to a crisp, and you’ve had training against torture techniques before but this, right, this is something else entirely, a whole new form of pain like you never thought possible, and the flames lick up your body, and your pretty face, and you can do nothing to stop it and you know that no one, in the entire world, is coming to your rescue.

And there’s this one last thought in your mind, one last fucking thought before you die.” 

And the weird thing is that Tommy can imagine it. The heat from the burning statue feels much closer than it actually is, like any second now Alfie’s words will cross that line between fiction and reality and come crashing down over Tommy. 

He keeps his eyes closed. Alfie keeps breathing close by his ear. Imaginary flames are consuming Tommy now, and then Alfie says quietly, “what’s that thought?”. 

And Tommy thinks, _I want to kiss you_. 

He says, “I shouldn’t have wasted money on that last haircut. All my hair’s ash now, anyway.” 

Alfie laughs, and Tommy opens his eyes just as Alfie flings an arm around his shoulders, a rare gesture of friendly affection. They watch Eisenhower burn until long after the two suns have set. When they beam up eventually, Tommy realises that Qaro already left hours ago. 

He sleeps well that night. The next morning, Alfie calls him into a meeting.   


 

**

 

_13 years ago_

Some days it feels like his entire life is just a series of interludes leading up to the main event. Graduate high school, complete the Academy’s cadet program, get into Command School, serve as an officer, get your own ship. Be a captain. 

It’s all laid out neatly in front of him, the script already written. All he’s got to do is follow it. Tommy likes it this way, likes that he knows all the parameters of the game. He never knew which actions would offset his dad. With Polly it’s easier – don’t follow those steps and get disappointment. Follow them and get approval. 

Tommy fully intends to get approval. 

So here he is, dressed in the red cadet uniform for the very first time. He’ll be wearing this outfit for four years, just like everyone else among the many first-years he’s sitting in the lecture hall with.

They’re all waiting for the introductory lecture to begin. Any minute now, the dean will welcome them all to the Academy, the beginning of a lifetime of serving Starfleet.

Everyone else is talking, laughing, generally socialising, although some people are just typing away on their PADDs. Tommy left his PADD in the dorm room, but he’s in no mood to talk to anyone else, either, which leaves him essentially just sitting there. He doesn’t mind, not really. 

A door opens somewhere, and a hush befalls the students as they’re all straining their necks to see who it is. 

Whoever just came in is _not_ the dean. It’s another cadet, seemingly not at all concerned about being fifteen minutes late. He walks up the steps, stops briefly, gives a general salute to the room. His smile is pure mockery – of what, Tommy doesn’t know. He rather suspects he’d prefer not to find out. 

The cadet takes a seat in one of the rows at the back, where Tommy can’t see him anymore unless he’s turning his head. He’s not going to; keeps his eyes to the front.

It doesn’t matter. It’s not like he was planning to speak to the guy, anyway.   


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading !! I'd love some feedback.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh god I'm so sorry for the wait, college has been CRAZY. But ! It is here now. Thanks to everyone who helped me with this!

The request, when it first comes, seems ludicrous. Alfie has called Tommy into meeting room 3 on deck 2 and as soon as he steps through the doors, he knows that this is official Camden business. Without preamble, Alfie says, “I need you to do something, and I need you to act like a fucking professional about it.”

Words like that have never preceded anything good. Tommy wants to bristle at the implication that he is not always a professional. This is neither the time nor the place for it, though. So he waits. 

“I have gotten orders to represent Starfleet on Christmas. You, my friend, have the dubious honour to come with me.” For one moment, Tommy’s mind is blank, but then he remembers that Christmas is actually an M-Class Planet in the Rigel System. _Christmas_ is a word to describe something small, cherished and blue in their native tongue. And he remembers something else, too: 

“Christmas only ever allows one representative.” They are, in fact, famous for it. Presumably Alfie was chosen because he’s the highest-ranking officer in the closest vicinity, most-equipped to deal with whatever the problem is. In itself, that is not so unusual; the Camden has had a number of missions like this one. 

“And I am very aware of that,” Alfie says. He strokes his beard and leans back in his chair, regarding Tommy through narrowed eyes. There must be something he’s missing, Tommy thinks, something he has to miss because he doesn’t have all the information. He’s oddly annoyed by this. “Tommy, do you by any chance remember my medical file?” 

Tommy does not remember Alfie’s medical file, and there’s a very simple reason for that: “All our medical information is classified.” 

“Right,” says Alfie, not missing a beat. Tommy wonders if Alfie has actually hacked into the crew’s medical files, and then decides that he’d prefer not to know. “Well, this will make for a lovely surprise then. Bit of an afternoon delight.”

Alfie is clearly angling for a reaction, but Tommy refuses to give him one. Enabling Alfie, he has found, only tends to draw conversations with him to unimaginable lengths. Some days, Tommy can spend hours like that, just listening to Alfie go off topic and immerse himself in a ramble, only to realise eventually that actually, Alfie has turned the entire monologue into a circle, coming out exactly where he started, only this time with a verbal gun drawn. 

Other days, like this one, Tommy just wants to make sure Alfie gets to the point as soon as possible so that maybe he can actually have some dinner. 

Apparently realising that Tommy won’t say anything, Alfie grunts and continues. 

“You may know that the flora on Christmas includes a flower scientists call Mohinis Caerulea and actual locals call Anamites. Amanites are really quite incredible, actually, big as oaks and gorgeous blue petals, you see one and you never want to see another flower in your life, that I can guarantee you.” 

Tommy idly wonders if Alfie wants to fuck that plant. 

“They also,” Alfie continues, now sounding like maybe he was hoping to prolong this a bit longer, “release a special kind of pollen into the air. A special kind of pollen that just so happens to be perfectly harmless for about 99.998 per cent of the galaxy’s population.” 

If Alfie is about to say that he is one of the 0.002 per cent for whom this pollen is not harmless, Tommy thinks he would like to stab something. 

Alfie twists a strand of beard hair around his finger and says, “I am one of the 0.002 per cent for whom this pollen is not harmless.” 

Tommy’s eye starts twitching.

***

Here is what doesn’t happen: Tommy doesn’t stab anyone. He doesn’t shout at Alfie for having an allergy. He doesn’t throw his PADD against a wall, and he doesn’t walk out. 

He really would have liked to, though. 

Here is what does happen: Alfie calls Linda into the room. 

Tommy’s relationship with Linda can best be described as shaky. She’s excellent at her job – of course she is, or else she wouldn’t be on this ship. She is also engaged to Tommy’s big brother, and has been for five years.

Arthur sees her about two times a year when their shore leaves overlap, whereas Tommy sees her every time he’s injured, which is to say: A lot. The whole thing makes for rather awkward calls with Arthur, who always asks about Tommy’s wellbeing first out of a brotherly sense of obligation, and then spends the rest of the call asking questions about Linda while pretending that he is not asking questions about Linda. 

Tommy has known Linda since he joined the Camden crew, but is aware that Alfie has known her much longer. How they met, he has no idea, only that it can’t have been in the Academy. 

Linda comes in a couple minutes after Alfie sent for her over the comm. She smacks Alfie on the back of his head for tipping his chair backwards, and not for the first time Tommy thinks their first meeting is something he’d be greatly interested in. 

Possibly they would tell him if he asked. He has never attempted to. 

“No one’s bleeding, so what happened?” Linda looks surprised. Admittedly, Tommy can’t remember the last conversation he had with her that didn’t also involve his or Alfie’s blood.   
In a way, so does this one. 

“Ask Captain Solomons,” he says, because he doesn’t feel like explaining. Because if Alfie is about to do this very stupid thing, then he should at least own up to it. 

“Thank you, Tommy,” says Alfie sarcastically. And then he explains – his orders from Starfleet. His allergy, which Linda must already know about. His plan. 

It’s quite possibly the worst plan Tommy has ever heard. He says, “That is quite possibly the worst plan I’ve ever heard.” 

“You wound me, you really do. I wouldn’t have brought Linda in if I actually planned on dying, would I? Linda, would you explain to Thomas that as flattering as his worries about my continued health are, there will be no actual dying?” 

“You want to go on a planet with an atmosphere that will literally prevent you from breathing,” Tommy snaps before Linda has the chance to say anything. “You don’t know how long this will take, only that it could be days, and there won’t even be anyone to beam up your corpse, because you have to go alone, because there will be _no fucking help_ coming for you.” 

“A great virtue is the ability to listen,” Alfie says, and Tommy wants to punch him for doing this, for speaking so carelessly and at random, for not taking this seriously. Then he notices the tight lines around Alfie’s eyes and mouth, the tense stance Alfie holds himself in, and he thinks that maybe Alfie takes this seriously after all. “You possess a great many virtues, but listening seems to be a talent you are sorely lacking, because, and this you can trust me on, if you had listened to all I had to say, you would know that I am not going in alone.” 

“ _They only allow one visitor at a time_.” Tommy’s teeth are clenched together tight enough that he hardly gets the words out. It’s like talking to a fucking wall, and why the fuck isn’t Linda saying anything, she’s the fucking doctor - 

“Ah, but there is one notable exception to that rule. I, having no interest in dying in spite of what you fucking seem to think, have actually researched this, and do you know what I found? I found that the exception, right, the great big exception is couples. Christmas is big on marriage. It’s really quite offensive if you think about it, seeing as that excludes just about the majority of all populations, but for our purposes it’s bloody perfect.” 

Tommy stares. Of all the nonsensical things Alfie ever said, this one surpasses them all. “You aren’t married,” he says, slowly, to make sure Alfie understands, just in case he was hit on the head before this meeting started. Or maybe Tommy was hit on the head, and that’s why he feels like this is a fever dream. It’s certainly got the same absurd, slightly _off_ feeling about it. Any second Linda could turn into a giant pancake, or maybe his long deceased father will reappear to tell Tommy once more how disappointed he is. 

Alfie actually puts a hand on Tommy’s arm. Tommy looks at it until Alfie removes it.

“I’m not married,” Alfie says, mad glint ever-present in his eyes, “but there’s this funny little thing about humans: No one could fucking tell. In fact, I would go as far as to say that anyone who looked at me, right, just one look is all that’s needed, and anyone who did that would see a man what may be single but also very well not. No way of knowing, is my point, innit, and if I had a man next to me who claims to be my husband – well, that just brings us back to my original point of _no one could fucking tell._ ” 

A very long time has passed since the last time Tommy got lost in one of Alfie’s ramblings. He usually prides himself in being one of the few people who can follow all the inane drivel. 

Today, this ability fails him. Today, he asks, “What?” 

Today, Alfie says, “Tommy Shelby, will you marry me?”

***

Alfie’s plan does not seem any less stupid when they’re actually beaming down to the planet. The Christmassian ambassador is already waiting for them and leads them down a set of wide tunnels. Christmas’ inhabitants live mostly under the earth, which means that the poisonous pollen might not kill Alfie after all. Presumably this is why Linda wasn’t too worried about the whole matter, even if she drilled Tommy on medical routines before they left. 

If the atmosphere does kill Alfie – well. That’s what Tommy is here for. 

He keeps glancing at Alfie on the way, half-expecting him to drop dead any second. Alfie catches one of those looks, lips curling into an amused smile. 

Tommy doesn’t think it’s amusing. Of all the idiotic ways one could die on this job, dying of an allergic reaction and doing so entirely knowingly seems like one of the dumber ones. 

The ambassador explains something about the way the tunnels are lit, something about stones with inherent lights, like natural lanterns. Tommy lets the sounds of conversation wash over him, his thoughts drifting back to the bag he’s slung around his shoulder, the one with medical supplies. 

“-congratulations,” says the ambassador, voice indicating that it was the end of the sentence. Alfie makes a humming sound that may be agreement. 

Normally Tommy would be the one doing this, he thinks. He’s better at diplomatic matters than Alfie, if mostly because he actually talks instead of making random hums and grunts that qualify as valuable contributions in Alfie’s world. But the Christmassians wanted the best Starfleet had to offer, and only tolerate Tommy because Alfie insisted on taking his husband with him. 

His husband. Tommy. It’s days like these that make Tommy rethink every life decision that led to this point, this point where his captain suddenly takes his hand and smiles at him, like hand-holding is something they do all the time. 

Even though he knows it’s his job, Tommy still freezes initially, not used to the contact. Only the reassuring squeeze of Alfie’s fingers in his snap him out of it. He gives a smile, too. The ambassador looks a bit taken aback at this, then continues walking, and behind her back, Alfie makes a cutthroat gesture. Tommy’s face settles back into its natural expression of a faint scowl. Both Alfie and the ambassador relax.  

The rest of the walk passes without any further incident. And when they are shown their sleeping quarters and are told the negotiations will begin the following morning, Tommy even manages to keep from snapping at anyone – even though this means they lose precious time. _Alfie_ loses precious time. Because every hour wasted sleeping on this planet is an hour more time the native flowers have to kill Alfie. 

But he doesn’t point this out. He keeps quiet while he gets ready for bed, and then keeps quiet while Alfie gets ready for bed. He keeps quiet when Alfie bids him a cheerful “good night, aye?” and keeps quiet still when all the lights are out and only the stones in the walls cast a sort of dull glow over their room, their shared bed. 

Alfie manages to fall asleep within minutes, his steady breathing an indication that he’s alive, alive, _alive_.   
It's not enough. Tommy lies in the dark, first with his back to Alfie, then facing him, unable to close his eyes even for a minute, as if keeping them open will keep Alfie from dying, as if giving in to sleep will itself be the cause of death. 

Later – how much time has passed? – Alfie wakes with a jolt. He’s about to go back into a slumber from the looks of it, except his eyes narrow, and suddenly he says, “not a usual hour to be awake at, is it?” 

“And yet here we are,” says Tommy coldly. He’s not about to admit that the thought of awaking in the morning with Alfie dead by his side is so unsettling, so deeply horrifying, that he’d rather stay up all night. 

For the second time today, Alfie takes his hand. Only this time he’s not holding it so much as he’s pulling it towards him, resting it on his chest. Tommy can feel Alfie’s heartbeat like this, even and consistent. Alfie doesn’t say anything else, does indeed go back to sleep, but stays in close proximity, and his heart keeps beating steadily under Tommy’s palm. 

Somehow, it’s exactly what he needed, Tommy thinks as he, too, finally succumbs to sleep.

***

Seeing as he’s here in the role of the Captain’s husband, not the Captain’s First Officer, Tommy isn’t permitted to partake in the negotiations. Not for the first time, he thinks that he doesn’t even know what the negotiations are _about_. Orders from Starfleet, Alfie had said and left it at that. He hasn’t elaborated since.

Usually Tommy would keep asking, but he’s still not entirely sure where they stand. It’s been months since Raxeon Prime, and things have generally gone back to normal. And yet - 

Well. His inappropriate thoughts concerning his superior officer are his own problem, nothing to bother anyone with. Certainly nothing to bother Alfie with. 

Since he’s free for the next couple of hours and Alfie told him in no uncertain terms that standing at attention in front of the conference room the whole time would not be acceptable, he returns to the planet’s surface.

He couldn’t have gone to the Academy, let alone become an officer, if he hadn’t passed all his psych evals, but being underground still makes him vaguely uneasy, like he’ll choke if he doesn’t come up for air soon. Tommy has never told this to anyone and would do a million jobs that include small enclosed spaces if Starfleet required it. 

Alfie, because he is Alfie, has always seemed to know anyway, and usually sends someone else for these missions.   
It occurs to Tommy that maybe that’s why Alfie told him not to wait outside the doors. 

Back on the surface, he goes for a walk. Christmas is mostly a desert planet, but the environment they beamed down to looks eerily like a regular forest you might find an hour outside Birmingham. There are a couple of settlements here and there, a number of shops, a farm.

It’s nothing compared to the business in the tunnel system, where a whole city the size of San Francisco is located. They only saw the official government tunnels yesterday, but behind one of those inconspicuous doors near their room must be the entrance to the rest of it. 

He walks past what must be a shop, judging by the sign outside. He’s about to turn around and make his way back when someone whistles once, loud and sharp. He turns, finds himself face to face with two women, the size of their horns indicating that they’re rather old for their species. 

“Commander Shelby?” the first one asks. Tommy eyes her warily. 

“Who’s asking?” 

“We meant no offence,” says the second woman. “Just heard rumours about your marriage is all. Captain Solomons is the lucky husband, is he?” 

“Seems so,” Tommy says before inwardly scolding himself for his hostility. It’s good to be wary, but you mustn’t let it show. He forces himself to assume a somewhat more relaxed posture. “Is this your shop, then?” 

“Yes,” says Woman No 1. She sounds proud; maybe this is her life’s work. “We’ve had it for half a century now, haven’t we?” 

Woman No 2 smiles, kisses her cheek, then says: “Would you like to have a look?” 

Tommy would not like to have a look. Tommy would like to go back and be ready for when Alfie comes from the meeting. But it wouldn’t do well to refuse. Offending the locals is the last thing they need right now. 

“Let’s see it, then,” he says, and follows the shop owners inside. 

It's a clockmaker. Whatever he expected, it wasn’t this: A small room crowded with watches on display, plenty of boxes stacked in the corners, a strange chandelier bathing everything in a dim light. Tommy is in love. 

What the people on Earth – people on all planets, actually, who have never set foot in a spaceship – what none of them understand is that space isn’t just about escaping alien gunfire, or collecting probes for the scientists at home, or working out deals to set a trade agreement in motion. Sometimes it’s like this: 

Beaming down to a planet and realising that not all houses have to be built on the ground. Looking up the night sky and seeing two moons. Touching a plant that has a texture entirely unfamiliar, and drinking water that’s not water. 

And sometimes it’s like this: 

Talking to a family of four who are literally trees growing out of the ground, and whose comfortable habit of laughing and fighting and scolding you might find in any regular home on Earth. Seeing a boy help an old woman across the street, even though the boy is ten foot tall and the woman double that, and even though they both have wings. Witnessing two people kissing – a Vulcan kiss is, after all, just as passionate as any human kiss might be, if only different in the parts involved. 

And sometimes it’s like this: 

Stepping into a shop that is a clockmaker, and looking at the clocks only to find that time on this planet works different than what he’s used to. 

As a mostly underground species, the Christmassians don’t have the sky to orient themselves in time and therefore rely on watches only. There is no time difference between the different areas of the planet, he knows, and until now he’d assumed it was because underground, they didn’t need it. 

Now Tommy realises he’s had it backwards all long: It’s not that they rely on watches because they live underground. It’s that they live underground because Christmas does not rotate, and therefore watches are _the only option_. 

That’s not all, though. He steps closer to one of the tables, inspects the watches on there closer. They are meant for the wrist, and their faces are round, but that’s really all similarities they bear to earth watches. Instead of a clock hand, there are silver circles which seem to move at random, and what would otherwise be numbers are strange symbols here. Only ten of them, too. 

“Very popular, our watches,” says one of the women. “What do you think?” 

“They’re beautiful,” Tommy says, because they are. He notes that all the clockfaces, though varying in design, have the same colour, a neutral white tone. A certain fashion, perhaps, or just tradition.

It strikes him that this is the sort of thing Alfie would love, as he loves all alien things. His cabin on the Camden is full of tokens from all kinds of planets they visited over the years. In a way, Alfie’s quarters are like a shrine to the wonders of the universe. 

One of the things he put up the wall is a photo of him and Tommy, taken ages ago when they were still at the Academy. Tommy was surprised when he saw this for the first time, an unexpected piece of nostalgia he hadn’t even known existed. It seemed ludicrous, back then, that of all the wonderous places Alfie saw, and all the amazing people Alfie met, Tommy should be the only one worthy of a photograph. 

Thinking back to that moment, Tommy is overcome by the fierce wish to do something, anything, to mirror Alfie’s gesture. 

He looks at the watches and asks, “How much?”

***

That evening, Alfie paces. Something has gone wrong, _must_ have gone wrong, because Alfie only paces like that when he’s worried. 

Tommy waits for a bit and then waits some more, until finally his patience runs out. “What happened?” 

Just like that, the pacing stops. Alfie’s still practically vibrating with unsettled energy, but he sits down on the bed, face carefully blank, and says, “Nothing happened.” 

Thinking of the watch that is now like a lead weight in his regulation-issued travel bag, Tommy says, “I can help. If you just tell me why we’re here, what we’re doing on this fucking planet that’s so important Starfleet will risk one of its best Captains, I can help.” 

For just one second, Tommy thinks Alfie is going to tell him. And yet, what comes out of Alfie’s mouth is, “I’m going to sleep.” 

Once the lights are out, Alfie takes Tommy’s hand again, puts it back on his chest. Yesterday, it helped calm him down.

Today, it does nothing, his mind preoccupied with the questions he has been asking himself ever since they arrived:

What is so important about this mission that only Alfie can achieve it? And, whatever it is, why can’t he tell Tommy about it? 

It might be classified, Tommy reasons. But so classified that not even the Camden’s First Officer can know? 

There is an alternate option. The alternate option is this: Alfie doesn’t trust Tommy. Trusts him with his life, maybe, but not with this information. 

And if that is the case – if they aren’t as alright as Tommy thought they were, if Tommy has made one mistake too many, if Tommy has in fact screwed up so badly that Starfleet’s prodigy Captain feels he can’t trust his First Officer with mission details anymore – then it’s really very clear what Tommy needs to do. 

He needs to make sure Alfie doesn’t die, and then he needs to resign his commission.

***

He stops Alfie when they’re just about to leave their room for another tense breakfast with the ambassador, touching his arm lightly to keep him from opening the door. Alfie looks back at him, openly curious, so Tommy says, “just a second”, goes to his bag, and holds out the carved box he was given as a case. 

Alfie takes out the watch. It’s one of the more complexly designed ones, strange and unfamiliar, yet its intended purpose undeniable. The wristband is still just as he bought it, a pale grey, but the clockface is no longer white, instead a scarlet colour now. Changing colours isn’t a quirk the clockmakers mentioned when they sold this, but as far as additional features go, it’s not a bad one, he reckons. 

Alfie stares at him. “It’s a watch,” Tommy says just to say _something_ , as if Alfie needed an explanation. “Got it from one of the locals.” 

“And does this gift come with any strings attached?” Alfie manages to make the word _gift_ sound like a synonym for poison, his voice the definition of suspicion. 

Tommy supposes he sees why Alfie might think this – after all, it’s not like he is in the habit of giving Alfie gifts. But there is just something about this evident distrust that makes his insides freeze up, like this is what Alfie always feels when he talks to Tommy, and he’s only showing it now. 

“No strings attached.” 

“Well,” says Alfie, after studying Tommy for another couple seconds. “As this is a gift of substantial value and has _no_ personal sentiment I will have to report it to Star Fleet command. We can't have any accusations of impropriety.”

When before his voice has been the definition of suspicion, it is now the definition of good humour. His face is no longer hard, his eyes twinkling as he puts on the watch. 

“Unless of course it was a personal gift, which in that case would be perfectly fine according to regulations, and no one could accuse either of us of a damn thing.” 

On some level, Tommy knows Alfie wouldn’t actually report it either way. But if his future at the Camden, and therefore his future with Alfie, is to be cut short very soon, then he needs Alfie to know this. To understand. He blurts out, “it’s a personal gift.” 

Alfie doesn’t miss a beat. He shakes out his wrist experimentally and says, “did you know that the crew thinks your soul was crafted from the deepest, darkest pits of hell?” 

Tommy freezes, the insult not exactly unmerited but definitely unexpected. “I don’t believe in hell.” 

“No,” says Alfie and sends him a rare smile. “Neither do I, Thomas. Neither do I.”

***

Like yesterday, Alfie disappears into the conference room after breakfast, his watch now a rich green. Also like yesterday, the moment the doors close behind Alfie it’s like a particularly thick fog settles around Tommy. What was a spacious hallway just seconds ago could now as well be a small closet, the walls threatening to close in around him.

It’s actually _worse_ than yesterday, a mild discomfort having turned into the edges of an actual panic attack over the course of the night. Tommy can’t breathe properly until he’s above ground once more, and when he is, he goes for another walk. 

He’s careful not to take the same route as yesterday, choosing instead the opposite direction. Fresh air and exercise both help, and after an hour or so he’s calmed down enough to sit down in the shade of a tree.

He pulls out his PADD since he might as well read some of his crewmembers’ reports while he’s at it. The past two days haven’t exactly been relaxing, but he still shouldn’t have neglected his duties like that. If he is to resign, then he wants to leave the Camden in the best possible state, so his successor will be able to start at a clean slate.

So he reads and signs off reports, and writes a report of his own; he catches up with the intergalactic news; he sends one of his obligatory ‘how are you doing’ messages to Ada as he does roughly every three months. Finally, with nothing else to possible to and still plenty of time to kill, Tommy drafts his request for a transfer. 

It's a good letter, he thinks. Very well-worded, very professional. If someone sent _him_ a letter like this, he’d congratulate them on a job well done. Satisfied, he sends it off. 

Not even fifteen minutes pass before a shadow the shape and general angry aura of Alfie looms over him. 

He expected this. Alfie has never let a thing go in his entire life, and even though Tommy is doing him a favour with this, even though Tommy is probably doing the whole Camden a favour with this, there was never a hypothetical scenario in which Alfie would just let this pass by. 

He expected this. He looks up, is about to give his prepared speech that is so carefully crafted not even Alfie would find fault in it. 

Alfie says: “I would love to hear what fucking bullshit reasons you’ve thought of to justify this, but fact is that I do not have time for any of them right now because I actually need to do the job I was hired for, instead of just transferring whenever things get too difficult. Alright?

So what I need you to do is for you to get your fucking shit together, right? I need you to think really hard about whether this little episode of insecurities and angst needs to happen right now or whether it cannot wait a couple more days, and when you’re done with that, right, when you’re done with all of that, you can come back down and have dinner with me, and tell me that the mission is going to be fine, because it really does not look like the mission is going to be fucking fine, so I just need you to tell me that it will work out alright. Think you can do that?” 

He did not expect this. He should have. He says: “Yeah.” 

Which is when Alfie starts coughing. 

It starts as just a small cough, like Alfie is clearing his throat, but quickly morphs into a bigger one, and now it sounds a bit like Alfie’s lung is trying to make its way out of Alfie’s body, and is that blood, it’s definitely blood, and Tommy gets up from the floor and he knows he should do something, but he only gets to make an aborted motion before the cough stops and Alfie wipes his mouth. 

“I’m calling the Camden,” says Tommy. He pulls out his communicator, has already started to type in the right frequency, when it’s pulled out of his hands and thrown to the ground, where it shatters.

Tommy stares at it, then at Alfie. Alfie by all rights should look slightly rueful, as he usually does after destroying Starfleet-issued tech. Today he just looks like he’s about to attend a funeral, lips pressed tightly together, his stance tense. Tommy tries not to think about whose funeral it might be.

“You will not call anyone until this is over, and that’s a fucking order, are we clear?” 

“You coughed,” Tommy says, because he thinks Alfie might have forgotten. “How are you feeling?” 

“Like I’ve never been healthier. Hard though it might be for you, please remember that coughing is not always a sign or impeding death. You never know – I could be coming down with a cold, eh?” 

“I suppose.” They are on their way back to the tunnels now, ready to go back down. It _could_ be a cold, Tommy reasons.

It doesn’t _have_ to mean anything. And Alfie’s strong, anyway. 

Then Alfie says: “Either it’s a cold, or I’ll drop dead within 24 hours. I, for one, am looking forward to finding out.” 

And then he winks.

***

Here's what happens: It all works out. Later Tommy will think how suspicious it is that it all worked out. Later he will think that the odds really were against them on this, that the mission should have been a complete failure. But it’s a success. 

That is later. Here is what happens now: 

The evening of Alfie’s cough, they have a private dinner in their room. As always, they scan the food before eating, and, as always, find that it’s perfectly safe for humans to consume. 

They eat in silence. It’s a comfortable sort of silence, the kind of two people who are perfectly content in each other’s presence. 

They finish the soup, and normally they’d get ready for bed now, but Alfie doesn’t get up from his chair, so neither does Tommy. And finally, Tommy says: “The mission is going to be fine.” 

Alfie, who hasn’t met his eyes for the entirety of dinner, looks at him then. Tommy thinks that never, not once in the decade they’ve known each other, has Alfie looked at him quite like that, quite so – lost, maybe.

Suddenly Tommy understands the weird request, because with that expression on Alfie’s face, it’s hard to believe that anything will ever be fine again. This unsettles Tommy more than a bit.

Alfie is a fighter. He’ll fight until he’s physically unable to, he’ll fight until death itself, and probably he’ll fight even beyond that, because he’s just that kind of person. It’s the reason why 96 per cent of their missions have been successful: When everyone else has given up, it’s Alfie’s optimism that makes them carry on. 

Right now, Alfie does not seem like a fighter. Right now, he seems like he thinks that maybe this is the one time everything will fall to pieces. 

Tommy repeats: “It’ll be fine. Do you hear me? It’ll all be fine.” He knows that he can’t make a claim like that – doesn’t even know what the mission is about, doesn’t know anything about the negotiations, couldn’t possibly know how it will turn out. Alfie must know this, too, but he smiles anyway. 

His smile makes Tommy think that, while he might not know anything else, he does know that Alfie will do his very best to succeed. Will give his life, if needed. And – this is the important part – he’ll make it seem so easy, so fucking effortless, that no one will quite realise the brilliance of it. 

It’s moments like that when Tommy is struck by the sudden, slightly scary thought that he wants to stay by Alfie’s side forever. Just to watch him pull off the next impossible thing. Just to watch him smile. 

They fall asleep in each other’s arms.

***

Alfie’s cough, by all sense of narration, should turn into something serious. It should be only the beginning of a much more serious manifestation of an illness, a severe allergic reaction perhaps. Following this trail of plot, the reader will get what they have been waiting for all along: A tragic death scene with Alfie and Tommy at the heart of it. 

Alfie dies. Tommy mourns. One last-minute love confession, perhaps, just to top it off. Not a kiss, but a last shared smile, a last look. 

By all sense of narration, this is what should happen. 

But because real life doesn’t have a perception of good story lines and satisfying endings, everyone survives. The page is turned and life goes on, and somewhere, sometime, a thousand writers are crying out in agony.

***

It’s over. Tommy can hardly believe it. But Alfie pulled it off. This morning, he walked into the negotiation chambers for the last time, and when he came out, Starfleet had struck a deal. 

It’s over. 

They beam up immediately. 

Later, after they have gone through medical and Linda has confirmed that neither of them is, in fact, dying, Tommy takes a long shower. Later than that, he writes a short mission report, which proves difficult with the small amount of actual facts he has at his disposal.

He also takes that time to officially withdraw his request for a transfer and deletes all of Polly’s comm messages on the subject. She’ll want to speak to him eventually, but for now she’ll manage with just the knowledge that her nephew will be staying on the Camden. 

A week passes. Alfie has long meetings talking to Starfleet Command in the holodeck. Tommy also has a few meetings of the sort, some about the mission. Seeing his superior officers’ projected in holographic form has never been his favourite form of communication; he prefers the clean way of written reports. During the last meeting though, he suddenly understands the reason behind this. 

He thinks he still prefers reports. 

And even later than all of that, the week of endless meetings and little sleep over at last, Alfie comes to Tommy’s quarters. 

Visiting each other’s rooms is not exactly a novelty for them: There’ve been times when the Camden was so busy that they started having meetings in their sleeping quarters, and other times when they’ve just spent a couple hours hiding away together from their duties. 

Today feels different. Alfie doesn’t sit down, pacing the room instead. He doesn’t look at Tommy, and Tommy quickly finds that his initial decision to wait for Alfie to speak is driving him mad now. So he says what they both already know: 

“They offered me a ship.” 

Alfie stops, like he didn’t expect Tommy to say it out loud, like saying it out loud makes it finally true. 

“They fucking did, eh? They fucking offered you a ship. Told me, of course. Wanted my opinion. That left me with two choices, it did. Can you guess which choice I picked, Thomas?”

“Yes.” He’s thought about this all night. His final conclusion isn’t different from his initial one: Alfie would never have recommended him. Alfie thinks he’s a capable first officer, mostly, but Alfie also thinks that Tommy would make the worst captain in existence.

In the end, it’s simple: Alfie didn’t recommend him, but that doesn’t mean anything. Recommendations like that are only suggestions, never a rule. If Starfleet wants to give him a ship, they’ll do it no matter what Alfie says. 

Alfie comes closer, their faces now mere inches apart. “See, I really don’t think you can guess. Because if you’d guessed correctly, right, you really wouldn’t look at me like I’d just beaten a puppy to death in front of your blue eyes.”

Tommy flinches. He hasn’t got anything to say to that, so Alfie – never one to let a silence simply be – takes the opening. “They wanted my opinion, and know what I said? I fucking said to them, any ship will be fucking lucky to have Commander Thomas Shelby as their captain.” 

“You-“ Tommy starts, and stops, realising that he has absolutely no follow-up to that. 

Alfie recommended him to Command. 

_"If you’re ever wondering why it’s not you occupying that fancy chair on the bridge, then let me be the messenger of your epiphany and tell you that this-“ Alfie points at his wound that is seeping more blood now, “-is why.”  
_

Alfie recommended him. Alfie’s changed his mind. Alfie – wants him to be Captain. Wants him for bigger, better things.

This also means - 

Alfie doesn’t want him on the Camden anymore. 

Alfie doesn’t want him. 

Tommy hasn’t had a panic attack in front of anyone in years, not like this, but he can feel the edges of one creeping onto him now, his breath shortening with all the thoughts racing through his mind so fast that he thinks his head might explode. 

Hands on his shoulders. Steadying, grounding him. “What was our first mission together?” 

He can’t think. He can’t _think_ \- 

“ _Commander_.” The word comes out as an order, one Tommy’s body instinctually responds to as he stands to attention.

“Our first mission together. Name the date, the place and the aim.” 

His first mission. No – his first mission with Alfie, on the Camden. “Stardate 2432. Tyrus III. Rescue mission.” 

“Did we succeed?” 

“Yes.” 

“How?” 

“I distracted the enemy. You got the hostages out. We beamed up together. No casualties.” And suddenly, just like that, he’s calm again, his heartrate going down to its usual speed. Alfie must notice, lets his hands drop, but doesn’t move out of reach. 

“Excellent. At ease. Now, I want you to know that I’m asking this not as your superior officer, which admittedly is basically finished and dispatched with now, anyway, but as someone who has just watched you panic for no apparent reason and would really like to know why.” 

There was no actual question in this, but that’s just how Alfie is, and it’s not like Tommy could lie, anyway, not when Alfie is looking at him like that. 

“I turned down the offer,” he says, way more casually than he feels. 

“You – fucking what?” 

His heart sinking, Tommy says, “I thought – you said you didn’t want me to transfer. I don’t want to transfer either, so I – it doesn’t matter. I’ll ring up Polly now, tell her I’ve changed me mind.” 

“But you don’t want to transfer. I am getting this right, aren’t I, you don’t want to transfer?”

In all the years they’ve known each other, Tommy has never seen Alfie look quite like this. He’s well-versed in the art of interpreting Alfie’s facial expressions, his tones of voice, his words, but today he seems to have lost that ability. 

“I don’t,” he confirms, “but-“ 

His words are cut short by Alfie kissing him. 

Tommy’s kissed plenty of people in his life. A lot of them very good kissers, a few were bad, a couple were fucking spectacular. None of them kissed like Alfie. 

His first thought, when his brain comes back online, is _why haven’t we done that ages ago_. His second thought is, _why have we stopped_? 

Because Alfie has pulled back a little. He’s still close, but now he’s watching Tommy intently, like he’s trying to figure him out. Seemingly coming to a decision about him, Alfie moves back in, now trailing kisses over Tommy’s neck.

Tommy lets him, his fingers curled tight around Alfie’s hair. He almost misses the whispered, “you worked for this your whole life.” Almost misses it. 

Almost. 

This time it’s Tommy who pulls back. “What?” 

“You worked your whole life to have a ship,” Alfie repeats, louder now. “Didn’t you? Your whole fucking life. And you’re gonna throw it away, are you, Tommy? Just like this.” 

Somehow, it’s the easiest thing in the world all of a sudden. With a lightness Tommy is sure has never been in his voice before, not ever, he says, “Just like this.” 

Alfie’s eyes are searching. Trying to ascertain Tommy’s sincerity. 

Since Tommy has never been more sure of anything in his entire life, there is nothing for Alfie to find, no lies to detect. 

“Fuck me. Your aunt ain’t gonna be too pleased about that, will she?” Alfie says, gaze already fixed on Tommy’s lips once more. 

“Don’t talk about my aunt right now,” Tommy commands. “Actually, don’t say another-“ The rest of what he was doing to say gets swallowed and, quickly, forgotten.

***

After, they lie in bed together. Alfie’s shift starts in half an hour whereas Tommy’s own won’t start for another eight hours. It doesn’t matter. For the first time, it seems like they have all the time in the world. 

“Well then,” Alfie says into the silence. “I suppose I’d better tell you what that mission was all about, eh?” 

And the thing is – Tommy wants to know, he wants to know so desperately what mission could possibly be worth putting Alfie’s life at risk like this. A few months ago, he might have asked, might have let Alfie explain away. 

Now, he says, “No need.” Because there isn’t. Alfie thought it was important enough to risk death. Alfie thought it was important. That’s all he needs to know. 

Alfie asks, “Are you sure?”, and he says a bit oddly, like he’s not talking about the mission anymore. 

“I’m sure,” Tommy says. He means it.

***

Not many things change. Their missions have a slightly higher success rate now, but the change isn’t big enough to stand out. They go to the mess hall together slightly more often, too, but not often enough for people to notice the difference.

And, after their shifts for the day are over, they don’t go to separate quarters anymore. Maybe it’s because they grew used to it on Christmas, but Tommy finds that he sleeps easier with Alfie next to him. Alfie must know this, or maybe he feels the same, because he never comments on the matter, but each night he is there, all the same. 

And, one day, Tommy activates his PADD and sees an update from HQ. The information is highly classified – so classified that he’s not sure if he should even be seeing this at all. 

He reads it anyway. It’s short, only a couple of sentences, really. 

According to the message, the epidemic on Shondara, a planet in the Rigel system, has been stopped. No more information is given, but Tommy recalls that Christmas is also located in the Rigel system. He hadn’t even known that there was an epidemic. 

The second line of the update is seemingly unrelated, simply noting that there is a commendation for the Camden as a whole. 

That is all. 

Tommy reads it a second time. Thinks about the endless negotiations on Christmas. He turns off the PADD. It’s late; Alfie will be wondering where he is.   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for sticking with me through what I'd lovingly titled my "extremely obsucre niche AU all of 7 people will care about" ! I'm still quite surprised it turned out to be more than the 7 people I originally expected. Anyway, thanks for reading! I would much appreciate to hear your thoughts on this.

**Author's Note:**

> I would love to hear what you thought of it !


End file.
